


limits of possibility

by BlackJacketsandPens



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4155555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There had to be some sort of innate, unsolvable quandary that, if it were to ever be puzzled out – an unlikely happenstance –  would explain exactly what it was about Cid Garlond that was so infuriating, Nero decided.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	limits of possibility

**Author's Note:**

> 100% inspired by [tremaile](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tremaile)'s fantastic Cid/Nero fic. (Srsly go read it.) Also inspired by a headcanon or two of my own making, though I tried to keep mentions of my personal headcanons vague. In any case, this could probably be read as platonic, or romantic, whichever you like! I'm perfectly happy with either. I just love these two losers.

There had to be some sort of innate, unsolvable quandary that, if it were to ever be puzzled out – an unlikely happenstance –  would explain exactly what it was about Cid Garlond that was so infuriating, Nero decided.

Well, mayhap it wasn’t  _that_ unsolvable. He was oblivious, to an absurd degree. About as dense as a vein of pure darksteel. Unceasingly, patently optimistic. Naive as all hells. And so bloody  _good-natured_. You couldn’t get him angry if you actively tried – and Nero knew that one from several years worth of trying. It was…it made him eminently punchable. 

And yet…

You would think if the man infuriated him so much, Nero could just walk away and ignore him. Not give him the time of day. If you thought that, you didn’t know Nero at all. You probably never even met the former Tribunus – spending more than an hour with him you would have had a front-row seat to the obsession that had spanned at least two decades. Cid. 

They had been friends, once. Years and years ago, in another life. When they were children, young and idealistic, with dreams bigger than life and that unshakable, youthful certainty that they’d do it all together. Back when two little boys could sit forehead-to-forehead and smile wide enough to hurt, hands overlapping as they passed tools back and forth like they passed ideas, bouncing them around with the enthusiasm to move mountains and the certainty it would always be the two of them. Cid and Nero. Scaeva and Garlond. (Or Garlond and Scaeva. It had never mattered whose name came first.) Their Ironworks. Their  _Enterprise_. It would all be theirs, because they would change the world together.

But life had other plans, clearly. The specter of his father at his back, looming cold like ice and fearsome as a demon, whispering demands of perfection, and threats for if he failed. The Academy surrounding him, singing praise for – not  _them_  – him. Cid, Cid, always Cid, and never Nero. The prodigy son of the famous Minister…never the highborn military brat, youngest of four boys. And at his front, ahead of him always….Cid. His shadow so long and so deep Nero drowned in it, or felt as if he would. All the years of hoping the other boy would turn around, reach out, smile, say “I’m sorry; they’re wrong. We’re partners, aren’t we? In this together,” and let him catch up.

But he never did.

Frustration turned to resentment turned to anger and hatred, and a rift, an irreparable rift opened that never went away. Cid became Minister, and then ran away to the land of beasts and gods. Nero clawed his way up the ranks until van Baelsar – legendary collector of strays that he was – saw potential in the talented engineer and took him as Tribunus. But even then. Even when Cid defected, his shadow still shrouded Nero in inadequacy; worst, his departure only made his legacy grow, and Nero’s fade further into second-place. And so began the obsession. 

It wasn’t just to prove to Garlemald that he was the better engineer. It was to prove to himself – and to the clinging ghost of his father – that he was worth something. That he was not a failure. That his creations had value, and that his value was on its  _own_ merits, not as some replacement for Garlond. 

Maybe, though, some of Cid’s obliviousness had rubbed off on him. Because it took Cid’s apparent death to make him realize, with all the force of being hit by a magitek colossus, that he  _didn’t_ hate him.  _Didn’t_ want him dead. How could he? He wasn’t allowed. He  _had_ to be alive, because a dead man couldn’t admit to being wrong, couldn’t tell him he was the better engineer. And now he was gone.

Those five years were hard; the prize that was his Ultima was quickly an all-consuming obsession, something to fill a void and something to be his magnum opus – he would prove he was the best with this, or die trying. And more often than not, he found himself talking to Garlond when he was alone. Just…talking. Sometimes it was mockery, challenges, vitriol, boasts…and sometimes it was just talking. Like a man spoke to a friend, only it was to mere air and ghosts which he spoke.

Absence, perhaps, makes the heart grow fonder, but it does not make a man forget. The moment he saw Cid alive again, through the eyes of the Weapon he was test-driving…that guttering spark reignited, burning bright and hot and consuming him in a madness that sent him challenging the Warrior of Light with naught but his creations and his crimson armor, madness that nearly got him killed as he watched his masterpiece be destroyed.

But he did not stop. He picked up, turned his back on his home, and sought a different power. His country was meaningless, his legion gone, he simply didn’t care. Failure was death, so he was dead to them. But his madness was at its peak – the taste of Allag sweet like wine and just as heady, and he would make its power his. He would pull the tower apart piece by piece if it got him what he wanted. 

He would best Cid. He would. He would outdo the man he’s spent years chasing, or what else is he good for? He has nothing else. No home, no pride, nothing but this obsession. So he would chase it to the ends of the earth, beat his man if it killed him. And if it did, he would make damn sure that that last thing he heard was Cid admitting Nero was the better.

And it very nearly did. Six months in the Void. Six months in a dark, cold hell of his own making, protecting a par of clones with his bare hands til his knuckles bled raw and his body ached with every step, til the Void seeped into his bones and very nearly destroyed him inside-out – all the while claiming it was for his own selfish obsession, but at some point those words became a lie, and he knew in one moment that he would die here saving these two from darkness, and he would maybe be okay with that. 

Because for the first time in years, the blood on his hands was his own, and though it wouldn’t wash away the stains his weapons had put there, it felt good. Like he could do something beyond the path he’d been trapped in by his own mind.

And  _she_ had thought so, too. Many paths awaited him, she told him, like somehow she saw right through his obsession and his anger and his arrogance, right down into the little boy who had just wanted to make things to help people, and now all he did was make death, in order to prove himself better than a man he had once called friend, and all because he believed his only worth was in the things he built.

He had thought he would die there, a failure shown up by a skinny boy with the blood of kings, his last words a desperate, angry plea to be  _remembered_ – and then he was saved. 

By Cid.

He remembered grabbing the man’s hand like a drowning man grabbed driftwood, and vaguely registered – his grip is stronger than when we were children – and he was  _safe_.

And he realized, to his horror…he couldn’t muster up that anger anymore. It wasn’t entirely gone; things would never be resolved, and maybe it was best to leave the past in the past, and move on – he may no longer have a friend, but he has a rival, and perhaps that was okay. Whatever path he followed now, it would be one he chose, not one chosen for him…and he would seek new possibilities, whatever they would be.

For though it mean bringing down the very heavens, who shall challenge the limits of possibility if not them? Be it together or apart, he still had a calling; and he would shed his obsession, and this time, he would create for himself, not to prove anything, not for anyone else, and not to outdo anyone – just for him, to chase his own dreams and be the best at what he does.

And pretend that he didn’t almost cry when he realized Cid’s airship was their  _Enterprise_. Pretend that owing Cid his life was not nearly so bad as it sounded. Pretend he didn’t miss the old days.

The past was in the past, but if he was chasing his dreams…no, it would never happen. Some things not even engineers of their caliber could rebuild.

Ah, well…perhaps they would meet again. And when they did…who knew what would happen?

It was part of the puzzle – and like Cid, as easy as it seemed to solve, he probably never would.


End file.
